Portable devices, such as mobile phones, tablet devices, digital cameras, and other types of computing and electronic devices are designed with an increasing number of features and options, yet often as smaller and easily-portable devices. Accordingly, advancements in developing device components are needed to provide consumer devices that are portable, smaller, and/or equipped with more features. For example, mobile phones are designed to support more near infra-red (NIR) features for user experiences, such as for iris authentication to authenticate a user of a device, face authentication to authenticate the user of the device, expression recognition, for infra-red (IR) gesture detection with an imager or other receivers, for eye tracking, and for proximity sensing to detect the proximity of a user to the device, as well as for data communication. For each NIR feature or system implemented in a mobile device, an IR light emitting diode (LED) with a different wavelength is needed to provide a dedicated, optimum wavelength of the infra-red light. The multiple LEDs and components for the various NIR features or systems take-up printed circuit board (PCB) and packaging space in the mobile devices, which in some cases limits integration of new technologies into a mobile device, or results in an overall device size larger than acceptable.